One of the first LEED certified buildings I ever toured was a large corporate office headquarters building in Wisconsin. My tour guides, the building’s architect and corporation executive, proudly announced that the building had achieved LEED Gold.

Consumers are awash in green product marketing claims, and often have no way to verify the validity of claims being made. This problem is something green building practitioners face on every project. Without time and resources to verify green product claims, designers are forced to rely on the honesty and integrity of the manufacturers making the claims-sometimes with unpleasant results.

What is the most important thing to an architect? A plum commission? Peer recognition? Design awards? Fellow status from the AIA? All of these are certainly revered and desired, but the thing that most architects value above all is professional registration.

A spate of news articles have been popping up about large, commercial buildings being designed and constructed that will allegedly produce more energy than they consume.

The building enclosure is an assembly of materials and layers that acts as an environmental separator between the indoor and outdoor. It controls heat flow, airflow, water vapor flow, rain penetration, groundwater ingress, the transfer of light and solar radiation, noise and vibrations, contaminants, environmental hazards, odors, critters, and fire.

It is generally accepted that for each ton of cement manufactured, one ton of carbon dioxide is discharged into the atmosphere. An average cubic yard of concrete contains 500 to 700 pounds of cement, which equals 500 to 700 pounds of CO². New construction of an average U.S. residence with a full basement will require about 100 cubic yards of concrete, a contribution of about 60,000 pounds of CO².

This winter has been particularly unkind to us here in the Northwest. When it snows in Seattle, the place pretty much shuts down. We got hammered with more snow than many have ever experienced and it lingered for days and days.

Many of the economic predictions in circulation mark 2009 as the year the world will begin to see improvement in the economy. Most foresee a long, slow path to recovery, something that may be 10 years in the making. It took about this much time for the current green building movement to gain real momentum.

Steel is one of the most widely used of all building materials. The list is as long as it is varied; columns and beams, stud framing, concrete reinforcement, doors, door frames, ladders, sheet metal, lockers, bolts, nails, and on and on. It would be impossible to build a building without using some steel.

The Construction Specifications Institute, the organization responsible for the creation of MasterFormat used by specifiers, architects, manufacturers, and contractors throughout the United States, is entering the world of sustainable design with GreenFormat-a product data guide developed to track green properties of building materials and components used during construction.